I grip the wooden handles,

And look out across the team,

In the early frosty morning,

As I watch the rising steam.

I know before the work is done,

My jacket will be replaced,

By a warming sense of accomplishment,

And sweat upon my face.

How many miles will I walk,

In the furrow, six by twelve?

Turning over patient soil,

Inch by inch I delve.

I hear the scraping of the landside,

And gliding of the soil,

I hear the squeak of leather,

And the feel of honest toil.

I know in this new tilled earth,

My daily bread I win,

As I swing around at the fields far edge,

And head them back again.

The team and I connected,

By leather, wood and chain,

Perform this ancient rite of man,

And it’s more than food we gain.

There’s a deep sense of pleasure,

In the feeling of the work,

And a contract between myself and land,

From which I cannot shirk.

I’ve fed the soil, all winter long,

Which now will feed me,

I slice it deep with the coulter knife,

And open it for seed.

I find I’m caught in a cycle of life,

Myself and the land I tend,

I’ve no notion of when it started,

And I cannot see an end.